Stepper Homes Ltd.

We had a great experience overall with Stepper and its associates during our first home build. Our sales team of Josh and Christian were extremely knowledgeable and helpful throughout the entire building process. They were pretty easy to get in touch with when we had questions and they were open and honest with all of their responses, especially when it came to discussing upgrade options. I was a bit surprised at the beginning of the process how...un-glamorous the home selection area was. I guess in this day and age I kind of expected a mock-up of the house with color palette options online, almost like a 2 or 3d rendering rather than a drawer full of colors. Nonetheless, it was an easy process. We ran through 3 site supervisors but ended up dealing with Stuart Clare as our primary contact. We have nothing but glowing comments for Stuart. He is extremely knowledgeable about everything in the process and gave great explanations on everything when doing our house walkthroughs. He responded to all of our questions in a very timely manner and always had answers for us. Stuart was very courteous and professional during the entire process and we are so thankful that he was our site supervisor. He always had a smile on his face and was always willing to jump in and get things taken care of. Because of him we had a great building experience and couldn't be happier, we love Stuart!!! We had a list of deficiencies that we noted prior to our actual deficiency walkthrough and Stuart had responses ready for everything as he did a site inspection the day prior. During our final walkthrough we also had Brad with us and we have nothing but positive things to say about him as well. Extremely knowledgeable, courteous, friendly and helpful as well :)

We were in the market in 2013 looking to purchase a new home. We checked out various communities in our comfort zone of the deep South East of Calgary. Interestingly, at the time, we had not heard much about Stepper Homes, as we had recently moved from Ontario. By chance, when we went to Copperfield for our search, we ended up going into Sabal's office at first. We also conditionally booked a house with Sabal. That is when our customer service nightmare with Sabal began, which then led us to the showhome next door: Stepper Custom Homes. We decided to give a look, and we liked what we saw. The customer service, from that point onwards has been outstanding. Our home was built to our liking, and the standards that Stepper used to build our home were nothing short of great. We were happy with the selections available, although this was not a custom home. We were able to customize it within limits to our liking, and that was enough to keep us happy. The construction began on time, as promised, and we were constantly kept in the loop on what was going on. This made for a very personal experience for us, and that is what one expects with probably the most significant purchase of one's life. The construction team was outstanding, and the site supervisor was above and beyond. We felt like family and we truly felt we were getting good value for our dollars. Once possession day arrived, we got delivery of something very precious to our hearts: a beautiful looking, well-built, house that we can call home and raise our family. Everything was as promised, and again, customer service has been truly outstanding. Interestingly, the day we moved, our three year old kid found some crayon and colored our brand new wall. Our warranty representative was nice enough to go through the post-possession home inspection and take care of the wall and other minor scratches and dings that were inflicted during our move. This was unexpected and a very kind gesture. As time progressed, and while we now are approaching one year of possession, we have had no major issues with the workmanship of the house. All minor issues were attended to promptly, and everything has always been resolved. All in all, from the beginning until the end, and thereafter, it was a great overall process. My biggest emphasis on the whole purchase experience of a new home is the customer service, promises, and delivery of something that we can be proud of. We received the very best of all these from Stepper Custom Homes. I have recommended Stepper to a couple of family friends, and I would continue to strongly recommend them moving forward.

This is our first build and feel so lucky to have chosen Stepper Custom Homes to be our builder. We have had nothing but positive experiences with every level of the Stepper team.
Matt, Maureen and Ingrid in sales answered all our questions and kept us updated, came in on their days off to help pick colours and even sent us pictures of our new house during construction because they knew we didn't live close.
Remi looked after our home during construction. He was very honest and straight forward with us and kept us up to date throughout the build. He was very passionate about working for Stepper and extremely knowledgeable about everything about our home.
Everyone we dealt with in the office during the paperwork end of things was very friendly and seemed genuinely excited for us building our first home.
The home Stepper built for us is perfect. Everything is just how we imagined and have had very few problems arise like in every new build. How the warranty program works with Stepper is efficient and easy to use.
Barry and Jorge who came to address a few minor problems were very friendly and fixed everything they could right then and reassured us that if anything else comes up they would be right over to make it right.
I would not hesitate to recommend Stepper to anyone looking to build a beautiful home. The workmanship of the trades is excellent and the customer service is what really made this whole experience enjoyable from start to finish. They do great things as a company in places like Ecuador and really make you feel like you are more than a customer. If you are looking through the overwhelming number of homebuilders to build your home, look no further, Stepper Custom Homes has got it figured out.

Was reading over comments from other home builders and reasssuring in a bizzare way that other people are or have experienced similar concerns. I found 'Ricks' comments somewhat offensive and insulting and I'm thinking that perhaps he works for Stepper to have had such exceptional service and quality of workmanship. We have built 6 different homes over the years, all by different builders, and were actively involved with all 6 builds, perhaps more so with Stepper, since we consider ourselves 'seasoned' builders. While I agree that you need to be present and aware of what's going on throughout all stages of your build, people are paying for this service, paying for the expertise of the builder, making choices and signing off on items for a reason. When the builder does not follow through with what they advertise and/or promise, I think it's criminal and in my opinion, they are getting away with far too many things far too easily and seem to like to hide behind what ANHW finds acceptable, even though they clearly state (at least to us they did) that they build above those standards. Of all the houses we have built, this has been, by far our worse experience with a plethora of one problem after another. The problems and concerns we have had, were items that should not have even been issues had the work been performed correctly with integrity and committment to the quality Stepper eludes to. I would never build with Stepper Homes again and would certainly never recommend that anyone else does either. The quality of workmanship was definately not the superior craftsmanship they advertise. There seemed to be no quality control of any type during the build which lead to frustration after frustration. Blatantly obvious items that were left to us to bring to their attention to remedy, only served to reinforce our mounting lack of confidence we had in our chosen builder. Having taken possession of our home 4 months ago, we are still dealing with issues that were promised to be handled prior to possession. In that four month period we have had the opportunity to get to know some of our neighbours and at no surprise to us, and without prompting from ourselves, there are interestingly not too many people happy with Stepper. It's actually quite alarming the number of people who are upset with Stepper and alarming with the varying types of concerns. There is even talk of a 'class action lawsuit' , to which I say.....Stepper, you better pull up your socks big time, the word is out and it's not good!

We built with Stepper and moved in to our new home in June 2012. We decided to have our basement developed by Stepper, thinking that this way, we would know it was "done properly". From the DAY WE MOVED IN, there was a musty "wet concrete" type smell in the basement. Because it was our first time building new, we thought maybe at first it was a normal smell that would dissipate. Unfortunately, the smell did not go away. We contacted Stepper within a few weeks of moving in to let them know of the smell. The service guy at that time let us know that before we moved in, there was a pipe that had burst and our carpet in the basement was soaked in the hallway!! He said that before we moved in, our carpets were pulled back and heavy duty fans were brought in to dry the floors. He suggested that perhaps it was residual smell from that and offered to have a carpet cleaning come in to do a cleaning. We said we were okay with that (in hindsight, we should have not settled to have our brand new carpets steam cleaned instead of replaced!!). Within a couple of weeks or so, after the smell of the chemicals dissipated, the musty smell remained. It was then suggested that perhaps the underlay was mouldy and therefore, they made the decision that the carpets would be replaced. It didn't take long after that to notice that the musty smell was still there. By this time, there was a new service guy. In the meantime, through trying to figure out what was going on ourselves, we came across some small bugs and mold behind the vanity in the basement bathroom. We also discovered that the carpet in one of the bedroom closets was mildly damp. The stepper service guy came and said he thought there was probably a problem with the foundation or weeping tile and that he thought the best thing to do would be to dig out the dirt along the side of the house to see where the problem is coming from. He said he would talk it over with his manager. We were satisfied that as we completely agreed that there was obviously a structural problem. However, after speaking with his manager, they decided that the problem was because of undue pressure on the one side of our house because the lot was vacant. We disagreed completely. Houses stand alone all the time with vacant lots for months on end!!! How could they even think that was logical? Stepper came back and pulled some of the drywall off and of course, the wall was wet and there was a crack. Also, when we shine the flashlight inside the drywall, you can visibly see mold! Still, they said they wanted to wait until the lot beside us was sold and the home was built to see if that stopped the problem. By this time, we were in our home for about or just over a year. We decided to call the New Home Warranty people and pay the money to have an "unbiased" opinion. The guy came, wrote his report, and even though he saw the mold and damp wall, he agreed with Stepper and said we should wait until the house next door to us was built! We felt we had no choice but to wait it out because that's what we were told to do. Eventually, the house beside us was finished last summer (2014) and we had to call and call the New Home Warranty people to come back and assess it again. (The musty smell was no less obvious). He finally came back, took some pictures, wrote a final report and sided with Stepper. Despite the mold, wet wall, and constant smell, they said Stepper would need to come back and seal the "hairline crack" (it is thicker than a nickel) and close up the walls. In a nutshell, seal the wall and wash their hands of this. Also, similar to another review I just read, the New Home Warranty people blamed "homeowner lifestyle" for the exceptionally high humidity levels. I'm not sure how they can justify that comment. If that was the case, shouldn't all families with children have musty smelling homes? (For the record, we are pretty certain there is not an unbiased relationship between the Home Warranty guy we dealt with and the Stepper service manager. When the Warranty guy finally replied to our email, he cc'd the Stepper service manager on it and the contact name was a nickname. The reason we have left it so long is because we have listened to Stepper's every suggestion. We have not wanted to be difficult customers but here we are, going into year three with an unresolved basement issue. We realized that this structural problem could happen with any home builder company. That is not the issue. It is the fact that this has dragged on for so long that it is simply unethical.

I don't normally write reviews but I feel the need to share our experience with Stepper Homes and New Home Warranty.
We bought our house in April of last year. We immediately noticed a lot of issues with crappy workmanship. One of the biggest issues was our floors. They were cupped and cracking all over the place. We brought this to Steppers attention within weeks of moving in to our home. They sent the flooring guys to our house and we were told that they don't acclimatize their floors as they don't have time and we would have this issue on an ongoing basis....oh but don't worry, it's under warranty and we will come back and replace boards as needed.

I felt this was completely unacceptable. Why should we have to live with extremely cupped floors and cracked boards because of the bad workmanship. I again contact Stepper and asked of our floors to be replaced. I was told no....big surprise there.

We then decided to put a claim in through New Home Warranty. We paid the $150 fee to submit the claim and waiting for a call back. We finally got a call back and had an appointment. They came to our house, asked some questions and left.

We later received the report notifying us that the issues with our floors are due to our lifestyle and the home builder is not responsible for any repairs/replacement to our floors.

Funny thing is he left our a bunch of information we told him.....most important being that the floors were like this when we moved in!!! I am not really sure how our "lifestyle" can effect our floors before we even live in the house, but I guess it can! Anyone who knows us, knows that we take great care of our home and have never had an issue with our "lifestyle" ruining our floors before we moved into a house before!!!

So now that the report was done by New Homes Warranty, it's final. If we want to appeal this report it will cost us thousands of dollars.....would be cheaper to replace our floors ourselves. I have e-mail New Home Warranty and left a message for the manager, but surprise surprise....not response!

I guess we need to suck it up and at some point spend money on replacing the floors ourselves....or at least the 13 cracked boards. Fine!!!!! Now lets move on to our smoke detector.....anyone how was been to our house know that this goes off ALLL THE EFFING TIME!!!!!

I was making popcorn the other day and it went off.

Anytime our oven is used above 400, our smoke detector goes off. We again have had Stepper Homes come out multiple times to deal with this. They replaced the detector thinking that maybe it's faulty. That did nothing! We have asked that they move our detector as its right in our kitchen but were told no, it was done to plan so they aren't responsible.

I sure hope our house doesn't burn down when our breaker is off......which is every time we are cooking!!!!

We have lived in few new houses and have NEVER had such bad service. Please beware if you plan on buying a home with Stepper and don't think that New Home Warranty is actually there to protect them home owner....cause they aren't!

I have no idea what the previous reviews are harping about. People... A new home build is something that you need to be a part of, regardless of who the builder is, and you need to be onsite and make yourself a part of the process or you will end up with errors. Site supervisors nowadays aren't in charge of 2-3 homes like it was in the sleepy days of the 80's. We're in a boom, which means they are in charge of dozens of homes, so they can't spend all day, everyday just looking after yours, so unfortunately, they will miss things. Your home is the biggest purchase you will ever make and you can't simply just sign on the dotted line, wait 6 months, and then magically have a perfect home appear without any effort on your part... no, you need to be onsite for an hour or two every couple of days inspecting everything the trades are doing, you need to spot things, question things, and even argue things... I really don't understand the slack-jawed dimwits who leave poor reviews on here. They are the sort of people who will watch a Subway artist like a hawk over a $5 dollar sandwich yet put their complete blind faith in a builder and associated trades over a $500k house.

That being said, yes my home did have minor, and I stress the word minor, issues on possession day, but nothing approaching the level of the previous reviews. But then again, I made it a point to visit the site several times a week to keep an eye on things. My experience with Stepper has been nothing short of perfect. As long as you are part of the process and bring things to the attention of the staff and keep communication open, things will get done to your satisfaction. Simple as that. My home is in far superior quality and condition than their showhome of the same model.

To the guy who left the review where all of his baseboards are incorrect, walls aren't straight, etc etc. Did you not bother visiting the house once before possession??? Did you not have your framing walkthrough where you could clearly see, hey that looks way the hell off? You should have visited the site right after framing or right after the drywall went up... they mist definitely would have fixed that then and there before final finishing. Yes, it's probably something that the site supervisor or ops manager should have noticed, but they would have just marked it off as something to remediate after possession.

To Kelsey, laminate floors can and do cost more than hardwood, I have a very high quality laminate that costs thousands more than hardwood. Laminate today is not the same crap they used in the 70's in trailer park homes. Its come a long way and is more modern and fashionable than hardwood now. So expect to pay a premium. Builder's are here to make a profit, just like any other business. Don't like it? Build your own goddamn home and source materials yourself. And you had PLENTY of time before final sign off on your plans to make minor changes and add plugs and it was clearly explained to you that after final sign off, no changes are permitted in order to avoid confusion/miscommunication of plans to the trades. Your fault, not theirs.

My experience with Stepper has been nothing short of amazing. Although there were hiccups in the possession day walkthrough (this is normal, I have built 6 houses in the past 14 years in Calgary), they are dedicated to quality and will do what it takes to make things right and to make you happy. That says a lot. Every staff member, from sales, construction, and service are very accommodating and helpful and will address and ACTION all the concerns.

My only complaint would be that certain corporate policies need to change in order to ensure a better quality possession day experience.

I will gladly build my next house with Stepper again and especially with the site supervisor that was assigned to my build.

Once you sign be ware! They promise the word, but once you are comited and you sign off on your documents you have no say in your home. Did you forget a plug, or maybe want to make a simple design change, well you are out of luck. If you forgot it during the time frame they give you, too bad. There suppliers way over charge. We received our pricing for laminate and is was more than most hardwood. We fought them tooth and nail, they cam down to a price 5$ over the other laminate quotes we went and got. You have no say. Our build time was 3x, yes 3x!!! as long as they so proudly stated their build times are. Their employees are nice people, but be ware of Stepper Policies, its not your house.

Horrible builder I would never build with them again and never recommend them to anyone. Unskilled trades and DISGUSTING finishing. There was so many deficiencies to fix on possession it is unbelievable, even the furnace was not working on possession for almost 2 days (it was 10 degrees in the house) and the guy they sent to fix it broke it more and had to come back a second time. Many items on the house were also not completed on possession date (all outside paint, both bathrooms tiles and paint) and we are still now over a month an a half after possession waiting to get items fixed. Now I though this was already enough but the experience after sale is even worst, so far every single time I was waiting for trades or supervisor they showed up very late, or worst without any single notice, on top of that many times already for many various items they actually made it worst than it was before they came, their trades are complete clowns. All the baseboards were not cut behind the door casings so we have 1 inch gap in all of them, none of the bathrooms fans line up straight, lots of non-straight walls, railing not lining up straight, NO cleanup was done in the basement and BARELY any in the rest of the house and I will stop here or this would turn into a novel listing all the items.
Now there is 1 positive about Steppers: I had an incredible experience with their sale team and I have nothing to say against them, good people, accurate information, but sadly they are in the shadow of a horrible builder, and I am not the only one, neighbors in my area have various issues with them as well.